One Swallow
by InkGothical
Summary: It is said that when one discovers a swallow in springtime that summer is upon us but sometimes a surprise winter storm will blow the poor bird away. AU - Sherlock and John spend summers together as children/teenagers.


**Disclaimer: **Moffat is a bastard. That is all.

**A/N: **Oh hai. I used to have another account under the same name. But then it became wild and feral. Had to fix that nonsense. Anyways this was written for fuckyeahjohnlockfanfic's AU contest. So. Here you go.

One Swallow

By InkGothical

"John," Sherlock began, staring at his friend's bookcase, turned away from the changing boy. "Is your sister a lesbian?"

John, the boy in question, pulled up his pajama trousers and threw his shorts from the day into the hamper by his closet. "Okay, you can turn around," he announced and his friend did. "Is she a what?" he asked.

Sherlock sighed and John rolled his eyes. He was always like this, using bigger words that he knew John didn't know and then act all frustrated when he didn't know what they meant. It was tiresome sometimes, but for some reason John found himself not caring.

"A lesbian, John," Sherlock turned to his best friend and looked at him expectantly. "Is Harry a lesbian?"

John ignored his friend's question and turned on the fan in his window, letting the warm summer air circulate in the room.

"John –" The tall boy with curly hair persisted.

The smaller boy flopped himself onto his bed, "Sherlock, you know I don't know what that means!" The annoyance in his voice was obvious.

Sherlock glanced at him on the bed and then to the air mattress that he had spent half his summer on. He sat down on it and curled his knees to his chest. "Fine," he sighed. "A lesbian is a girl who likes other girls."

The other boy's eyebrows furrowed, "Well, of course she likes girls, she's got a bunch of friends who are girls…"

Sherlock flopped backwards on the mattress, "That's not what I _mean_, John! I mean…" he searched for the phrase and flipped his hand wildly. "I mean _like_ like. Does Harry _like_ like other girls?"

John's eyes widened as he sat up suddenly, "What?" he cried out.

"Shh, John, quiet," Sherlock hushed throwing another arm up in the air. "Your parents are just downstairs!" John exhaled slowly but still looked frazzled. "What, haven't you ever heard of homosexuality, John?"

His friend shook his head, "No."

"Oh, very well then, John. Let's go to sleep now."

Sherlock got up to turn off the light. The room was plunged into darkness. They could both hear the telly downstairs. Sherlock made his way back to the air mattress.

For a long while they lay there in their beds, listening to the sounds of summer animals just outside and the fan whirring in the window.

"Sherlock?"

"Yes, John?"

"If a lesbian is a girl who likes girls, is there a word for a boy who likes boys?"

Sherlock's sheets rustled as he moved beneath them. "They're just called gay. It's both a noun and an adjective."

"Oh, okay."

John rolled over underneath his covers, and then rolled back again.

"Sherlock?"

"Yes, John?"

"What about if you like both?"

"Bisexual, John. I believe the slang is 'bi.'"

"Oh, okay."

John's eyes adjusted to the darkness and, with the help from the moonlight pouring in from the window, just lay in bed watching Sherlock's figure shift and move on the mattress.

Suddenly, Sherlock's voice chimed up from the bed, "So, is she?"

John, who hadn't even realized he was half asleep until he had to think and speak again, replied croakily, "Is who what, Sherlock?"

The voice sighed and the body stretched out, he was very tall, he would one day not fit on the mattress. "Is Harriet, your sister, a lesbian, John? Does your sister like girls?"

The boy on the bed groaned, "Sherlock, how am I supposed to know? I thought she and Mycroft were dating!"

Sherlock snapped up in bed, "What?"

"Well, they're always together in town, I thought they might be dating…"

John could practically hear the cogs in Sherlock's head turning and smell his brain burning, "This is brand new information!" he cried out a little too loudly and John practically leapt out of bed to quiet him. He was suddenly on top of his friend with his hand pressed firmly against his mouth. Sherlock was mumbling beneath it, "John! I have to reassess everything, John!"

The boy who was supposed to be suppressing sound giggled, "You never thought of that? You think of everything!"

Sherlock licked John's palm and John removed it immediately. "No," Sherlock snapped back at his gloating friend. "I've never really considered my brother being capable of having a sexual relationship with anyone or anything – aside from, perhaps, his umbrella."

John giggled again, wiping his hand on his trousers, "Is that even possible?"

"Certainly, John." Sherlock answered quickly.

The smaller boy felt his eyes widen. "How?"

"I suppose the same way that two men have sex…" Sherlock didn't want to admit that he wasn't quite sure how this was achieved but he assumed that having sex with an umbrella would happen in a similar fashion even if it might not elicit a pleasant feeling.

"How do two men have sex?" John pressed the question and leaned in even closer to Sherlock. Their noses were almost touching and John could feel Sherlock's heavy breath on his face.

The boys' eyes locked and for a moment it was as if John hadn't asked the question because Sherlock, for the first time, was ignoring it. The smaller boy, still straddling the taller leaned his forehead against his friend's. The summer air had made both faces damp and soft and the sun had tanned them both

They smelled like grass and sunscreen and bug spray; rain and dirt and mucky lake water – they smelled of a boyish summer in Sussex.

Their breathing evened and Sherlock actively synched his up with John's. Their chests rose and fell together and they just sat there together on the mattress, breathing with one another. They didn't count how many breaths they took together or how many minutes they sat perched like this but it only ended when, quite suddenly, Sherlock moved his forehead and instead quickly pressed his lips to John's in a quiet and quick kiss before he pulled back away from the other boy entirely.

In the following minutes, it can be assumed that John got up and moved back to his own bed, slipping underneath the covers for the night. The only thing he remembers after the kiss is feeling it burning on his lips all night into the morning when the dawn crept into his window.

Sherlock did not come back the next evening to play in the light of the setting sun; he did not come back at all that summer. A week later, he was back in London going back to school.

John did not know how to feel about any of the night's discussion or happenings. He did become more curious about his sister and Joanna and what they really might be doing behind her closed door. He didn't dare put the question to himself though; he couldn't bear to think of what it might mean to be anything but normal.

Eventually, the question left his mind as well as the occasion of his first kiss. He shared another one with Penelope at Christmastime anyways and would, in the future, reference that as his first, leaving what happened between he and Sherlock a complete secret.

The Holmes family did return to Sussex every summer and Mycroft did frequent the Watson household, calling on Harry to take her on walks into town and to make picnic lunches for the fields but his younger brother never made an appearance in either locale.

It wasn't until many years later when both boys were eighteen that they met again.

The Holmes family had returned to Sussex just in time to see the graduation ceremony of the graduating classes in town and attend the community gathering to honor them. Sherlock, a recent graduate himself, was even added to the list of rising university first years.

While most of the parents schmoozed inside the meeting house, all the students – they could hardly be called children anymore – ran about outside and snuck beer and liquor out into the back. They could have bought it, but stealing from the adults for free was a far better way to go about things.

John was straggling in from out back with a little boy on his shoulders and two girls clutching onto his legs. They couldn't have been more than five or six years old and they were determined not to let him go. All the teens had long ago taken off their gowns but the boy on John's shoulders had a colorful cap practically falling off his head and covering his eyes.

As he walked into the room some parents laughed and made room for him, one came up and tried to snatch the cap-wearing boy off his shoulders but he insisted loudly, "No, no, it's fine! Really! We're on a mission to get some juice!" The three kids giggled loudly but as he turned to go back towards the refreshment table, he noticed that Harry had come in too and was talking to a pair of young men – one of whom had a signature umbrella hanging from his forearm.

Harry looked up to see what the ruckus was about and started laughing; she pointed him out to the two conversationalists who then turned to look as well.

One was Mycroft – he looked well-suited as always and had lost some weight since winter. He looked how he had always looked in John's mind; he looked important and intelligent.

The other man was tall and thin – gangly like his limbs were too long for his body too control – he too was dressed impeccably although his mop of curly hair clashed entirely too much.

Mycroft was laughing next to the slightly younger man, happy to watch John's calamitous struggle but it wasn't until the other man's mouth twitched slightly in a smile that John could be completely certain of his identity.

Sherlock.

John hadn't seen Sherlock Holmes in almost a decade but he could only think of one person whose mouth twitched slightly without breaking out into a full smile. It also helped John's chances of being right that he was standing next to Mycroft.

John continued to bring the children to their drinks and once they were safely outside, he slipped back in and made his way over to Harry. His sister was currently grasping a glass of white wine by the stem and jostling it perfectly so it splashed around but never spilled a drop.

She was gushing at Mycroft, "I can't believe you got that internship, My! You worked so hard on it, you totally deserve it!" She turned wildly to face her brother, "John! Say hello to Mycroft and you remember Sherlock, don't you?" His sister was drunk.

John nodded at Mycroft, "Congratulations on the internship," he received a smile in return before he turned to face Sherlock. "Of course I remember Sherlock. How could I forget? Congratulations on you graduation."

Sherlock looked down at his shoes, "And you as well."

"Sherlock," Harry suddenly said brightly, "Why don't you go outside with John! There are a bunch of other people your age!" The taller boy's eyes widened in fear of the thought and he shook his head slightly. "No! Go! It'll be _fun_!" She suddenly gave John a push towards the general direction of both Sherlock and the back door. He stumbled slightly, bumping into Sherlock's arm. John apologized and Mycroft also gave Sherlock some encouraging words until finally the taller boy was striding towards the door and John had to catch up.

"So," John started, coming up along side him. "Where are you going to school next year?"

"Cambridge."

"Oh! Wow!" They exited the building and stepped out into the evening. "I'm going into the army for a year to help pay for school, but then I hope to go to Saint Bartholomew's in London."

Sherlock hummed, "I considered Bart's for a while, but Cambridge wanted me. Oxford offered me some money but Cambridge is closer to London and it has better facilities for what I want to study."

"What do you want to study?"

"Chemistry and forensics."

Suddenly, John felt as if they were ten years old again walking out of that meeting house going to run around out back with the other children. John would ask questions and Sherlock would answer them plainly, knowing that John would only have to ask more questions in response. He had been the only one willing to ask all the questions that initially pulled him from his introverted behavior all those years ago.

"Wow! That's brilliant!" Sherlock's mouth twitched upwards again, but he did not respond.

Fully outside and near the others again, the three children bombarded John again practically knocking him down but again, stumbling into Sherlock.

"JOHN!" The smallest girl cried. "John, who is this?" She had managed to clamor onto his back and was now pointing a finger right in the tall boy's face.

Sherlock reached a hand up as if to shake, "Sherlock Holmes. Pleased to meet you."

The girl stared at his hand, "John, he's weird! Is he your boyfriend?"

John spluttered and began to answer but Sherlock just cocked his head and asked, "Why would you think that?"

The other girl answered this time, she was holding John's hand lightly, "John doesn't have a girlfriend despite being on the rugby team and being handsome so he's got to be gay and you're a boy we don't know so you might be his boyfriend."

Sherlock's mouth twitched again, "No," he finally responded. "I'm not his boyfriend."

Later that night, Sherlock and John were sprawled out in the grass away from the other graduates. Some of them had remembered Sherlock but had not been interested in making small talk but rather drinking and gossiping loudly. The three children had been carried off by their mother and father eventually leaving Sherlock with John all to himself.

"Have you ever missed someone and not even known it?" Sherlock's voice was deep and quiet, his breath steady. John thought it over, staring up at the sky – somewhat clear, the air damp with the promise of rain, but before he could respond, Sherlock continued. "Did we fight when we were younger? Is that why I never returned?"

John turned his head and gaped at him, "You don't remember?"

Sherlock imperceptibly shook his head, "I believe I deleted it from the hard drive that is my brain."

"Right," John looked back up at the sky. "Well, you kissed me."

This information hung in the air for just a moment.

"Oh," Sherlock replied. "Is that all?"

"Yep, you kissed me and then you never came back."

John could feel Sherlock nod to himself, the grass bending and twisting, "That explains it."

Just like when they were ten, John asked the question, "Explains what?"

"The feelings I have for this place."

John turned his head to face Sherlock, "What are they?"

Suddenly excited by the prospect of sharing this newfound information, Sherlock propped himself up on his arm completely turning his body to face his companion. "I always had a bad association with this town but I have bad associations with almost every town but I specifically never wanted to go near your house. Mycroft occasionally asked me to join him but I refused and we both assumed it had to do with _you_ but today, even when I first saw you, I only had good feelings – a positive association – and it was baffling me, it truly was, but of course it wasn't you I had a negative association with, we must have had too many good memories for that – it was your house, your bedroom where I am assuming we kissed."

John smiled, "Well, that's easy to fix, just come with me now to my house, you'll see there's nothing bad about it. I just can't believe you've forgotten that kiss…"

"Well, I was obviously highly embarrassed by it." He flung himself back on his back and threw his hand up in a noncommittal gesture and then let it fall between them, palm up.

John rolled his eyes, "I can't imagine why," he insisted. "I didn't mind. It."

"No?" Sherlock rolled to his side again.

John shook his head, "No, I remember being pretty intrigued by it all, actually. We had been talking about sexualities earlier. I wrote it all down in my journal the next day. I re-read them all recently, my journals."

"Did you?"

"Yeah, a bit of nostalgia really."

Sherlock hummed and then asked, "John?"

"Yes, Sherlock?"

"Might I try something?"

"I suppose so, Sherlock."

Slowly, Sherlock took the hand that he wasn't resting on and rested it on center of John's chest without pressure, letting it rise and fall with John's breath.

John realized quickly that he was evening their breaths like he had before and attempted to tune into Sherlock's.

When their breathing was easy and even and John was calm enough to have closed his eyes and had even begun to think about sleeping, he felt Sherlock rustle beside him. He let his eyes open slowly only to meet the intense, staring grey ones of Sherlock peering at him.

It took an impossibly long amount of time for Sherlock to kiss him, but when he did, John wished he would never stop.

So, Sherlock barely did stop throughout their whole summer. Every activity was preceded and followed by a kiss with any number of them in between. It seemed like every moment not spent kissing was only a small break before the next one was to come. Sherlock, it seemed, smoked the whole time whenever his mouth was not otherwise occupied.

The boys spent every waking – and non-waking – moment together just as they had when they were children. Only, this time, they spent every day much slower than they had then. They climbed trees – not just for the hell of it, but to obtain apples to bring home and mash into applesauce. They still rolled around in the grass, but now they held onto each other rather than trying to grasp at the easily broken blades. When they swam, they found the most secluded part of the lake that they could and no longer bothered with swim trunks as they had in childhood – preferring to blindly grope in the murky water and feel and touch whatever their hands happened upon.

In the evening, when they smelled of lake water and sunscreen, they would retire to John's house as they always had. Now, instead of icelollies, they had tea on the porch and Sherlock would pick up a book and start reading aloud to John. They could stay like that for an hour or two at a time. John might start out by playing solitaire before finally winning or giving up on losing, then he would join Sherlock on the large chaise, scooching in behind the larger man while he continued, at the same steady pace, to read from the book. John would then hold Sherlock, sometimes tracing words on his back through his shirt, words that Sherlock had used during the day or interesting thoughts from the book.

Finally, when Sherlock's pace slowed or if the part of the book was particularly boring, John would relieve the gangly man of his burden by restarting their kissing. He would press his warm lips against each shoulder gently at first, so as not to distract, but just give a signal. Sherlock would never break his narration but John would know he had received the message and would continue to rain kisses against his back, pressing in especially at his shoulder blades. When he had equally distributed kisses along his shoulders, he would work quietly and softly on his neck, kissing up the back of it at first, along each bone in his spine leading up to where the skull meets it. By then, Sherlock had closed the book, knowing where this would go. John, now not needing to worry about distraction, would kiss the soft skin just below Sherlock's ears and down the neck to where it meets the shoulder. He would untangle his arms from around Sherlock's waist and rewrap them around his arms, trapping him in his grip before pulling him back to rest on his body to continue to kiss him.

They would eventually go up to bed where they'd lay together in the summer heat above the blankets and Sherlock would reciprocate John's ministrations.

It was perfection.

Their final day together that summer was spent differently than their last last day had been. They laid out under the shade of a willow tree just on the bank of the lake, John's mother had packed them a picnic that they could barely fathom touching. They had been swimming in small intervals but had often returned to where they could just lie together in the shade and protection of the overbearing tree.

"Are you going to miss me when I go?" John asked at some point in their day. Neither of them had worn a watch for fear of it breaking in the water. Neither of them knew if theirs was waterproof and so they just left them behind – it was a convenience of summer.

When John asked the question, they were both lying naked on the blanket – or rather, John was lying on the blanket and Sherlock was lying on top of John. They had been just lying there and breathing together until Sherlock had begun to kiss John's neck. When the question was asked, the taller boy, shifted on top of him and got his knees underneath him pressing them against John's buttocks.

Sherlock continued to kiss John's body, moving to his chest where he grazed his teeth gently. "Oh yes," he insisted, between kisses. "Horrendously so."

For all their summer of kissing and underwater touching, they had not proceeded much sexually – something that frustrated them but they both knew it was better that way. They had decided that it might help when they had to be separated for a year or more but by the way Sherlock appeared to not be yielding, John had a sudden epiphany that that might all change and that there might very well be little way or will for him to stop it.

John had received fellatio before – the girl down the street, Anna, had been quite interested in giving it a year ago – but it was indescribably different with Sherlock. It didn't feel like someone just locking or sucking on his prick, it felt like an extension of an emotion, as if Sherlock was expressing himself through a blowjob.

When he reached his climax, John attempted to signal it somehow to Sherlock. He gripped the beautiful man's arm, pressing his fingers into the flesh, feeling how skinny the man was. If he had meant to deter Sherlock, it did not work for he only continued his pursuits more vehemently. He was going to protest verbally when suddenly the threshold was crossed and he exploded.

John offered many times throughout the afternoon to reciprocate but Sherlock had refused. They both went swimming again and it wasn't until later in the evening, curled up on the chaise that they discussed anything of importance again.

Sherlock closed the book gently, having read the last few words of it, and leaned back into his lover's arms.

"Will you actually miss me?" John asked again, breathing over his ear, pressing his nose into the hair above it.

Sherlock responded flippantly, "Of course, John."

"No, Sherlock, I mean it, how are you going to feel when I go away tomorrow?"

Sherlock tensed in his grip even as John's thumb gently traced circles into his shoulder. "I haven't thought about it, John."

"Well, think about it now." Sherlock groaned and John sighed. "I just want to know where we stand, Sherlock. Are we together? Will you come back for winter holiday to curl up by the fire and read another book? And what about next summer or the one after that?"

The taller boy sat up, breaking away from his shorter companion and reached for the cigarettes and matchbox on the side table. John pulled his knees to his chest and Sherlock swung his legs to the edge of the seat, pressing his toes into the porch floor. He did not make eye contact.

"John," he began, lighting a cigarette. "I believe it's time for me to refocus on my studies. I cannot be distracted by longing or desire." He snuck a glance at John. He appeared confounded with his arms wound tightly around his legs that were pressed into his chest. "My one love must be my work, John, as it has been for the past eight years. I cannot afford to be distracted. I allowed myself this summer but I doubt that in years to come I will be able to distinguish my feelings for you and my feelings for the summer in general. I might even forget I had a lover."

Sherlock looked to the sky and blew smoke at the porch lamp. He looked back at John who now had his nose pressed into his knees, getting smaller and smaller by the moment.

"Don't get me wrong, John. You've been a marvelous companion the past three months, but I'm really not even sure if sex is something I wish to pursue."

John peeped up at that moment, "Sex with me? Or sex with anyone?"

"With anyone, John." Sherlock confirmed. "Though, I must say I have been questioning my homosexuality. It's not that I don't want to have sex with a man, it's really that I don't want to have sex with anyone – I suppose that might make me asexual…"

"Oh God," John moaned and Sherlock peered at him, still smoking. "That's all I've been to you, isn't it? Just an experiment – an 'exploration of your latent homosexuality!'"

Sherlock looked away from John and watched the stars twinkling millions of miles away. "Well," he said. "Yes."

"God." John exclaimed again and banged his head against his knees.

The tall boy looked at him. "What did you expect, John, darling?" John, _darling_, looked up, there were tears in his eyes. He didn't want them there, but they had formed just the same. Sherlock looked at him earnestly. "One swallow does not make a summer," he reminded him.

John blinked slowly and then closed his eyes altogether. Sherlock stood and put out his cigarette in the ashtray on the side table then came to John's side.

"I'm sorry if that isn't what you wanted to hear," he swooped down and placed a kiss on the smaller boy's forehead. "Come to bed, John."

And into the house he went.

The next morning, he was gone again.


End file.
